China learned, the, importance _of conservancy of rivers and waterways from the very early days. Hundreds of thousands' of dollars were, spent annually In this work. As this province hes a long sea coast, a number of lakes and several large rivers running through its territory, conker vane must take a high place in the {eld of reconstruction, specially with regard to navigation and irrigation.
"The predecessors of the Chekiang Hydraulic' Engineering Bureau. were the bureaux on sea walls, the most Important of which is the sea wall at the mouth of Chientang River (or Chekiang),'out of which the name.of the province-ha® its origin. This part of the work is usually divided into three kinds: (1) annual maintemnee, (2) monthly maintenance and (3) special repairs.
The bureau~also does many other kinds of work. It constructs and maintains dams, regulates river banks fan repairs dykes and docks. It supervises irrigation "works, flood control. meteorological observations and surveys, which include triangulation, levelling, soundings, typographical surveys and hydrologic surveys. The annual expenditure for the engineering work handled by this bureau runs to. several hundred thousand dollars. Tt is noted that this bureau fest Introduced aero-survey Into China, In addition, this bureau, has several Important measures to carry out, such 4 the improvement of the Hangchow Bay, regulation of the. Chientang River banks in the neighbourhood of Hangchow, reclamation of the Sang-men Bay, construction of a meteorogical observation station at Tienmoshan, as well as the connection of Chientang River and Grand Canal which has received the serious atten-Mien of Provincial authorities,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.